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Then the duke, deservedly most famed, delighted and merry at the marvelous victory already accomplished, and rendered even more delighted by the heir and successor now born, sent Heinric of Bayeux, a bishop of the very highest reverence, and Botho, by glory chief of the household and of his household troops, to receive the boy of salvation-giving peace, renewed with distinction by the fluid of the symbolic bath of sacrosanct oil and chrism, and cleansed in the font of rebirth, calling him Richard. Merry at the message of this expedition and going, with a nimble retinue, to the walls of F‚camp, they were received by the clergy and the people, the religious items having already been respectfully prepared. For indeed the following day, as the clergy of the whole province and the people of both sexes arrived from every quarter in thanksgiving for the baptism of the previously-born lad, the aforesaid prelate with count Botho received from the purification of the holy bath, in the blessed font of mystical washing, the boy named Richard, reborn through the salvation-giving inundation of a triple immersion, and engraved with the nectar of the sacred chrism, and with the foulness of the oldest man having been removed by the name of the deific trinity by that most reverent prelate Einric of bayeux, along with the rest of the bishops of the land. Truly, once these things had been accomplished with the greatest reverence, while the clergy praised God very much for the newborn duke and the throngs of people retreated, the prelate with Botho reported to duke William what had been done concerning the boy.

APOSTROPHE

Oh the happy merit of the sacred infant,
Sprung from a distinguished father,
And from a celebrated mother,
Richard, indeed, by name,
Whose purification,
And whose renewal,
In the never-ending name
Of the lord God the father,
And of God his offspring,
And of God the sacred holy spirit,
And nevertheless of a single true God,
Has been fittingly effected
In your stronghold, O F‚camp,
Which flourishes near the shores of the sea,
Rouses populaces and peoples (note 1)
And all the clergy everywhere,
To bring forward (note 2) sacred shouts of joy,
To God the father and
To the one brought forth from the virginal womb (note 3)
And with the holy spirit, always sacred.